Spaced Out

On 18/05/2020 at 23:08, TheCounter said:

I'm outdoors testing the GPU right now and BOY, its soo much better than the MPCC. Stars are sharper and more round, especially in the far corners.

I never thought it would make such a massive difference! Glad I switched my MPCC for it

I'll post a subframe comparison within the next few days.

👍. I'd like to see this please, did it take much fiddling with spacing ? I use the MPCC I find it very good but it is a bit faffy getting it set up and spaced correctly.

21 minutes ago, TheCounter said:

I had the MPCC too, but I switched it for a GPU (TS Superflat GPU).

First light is tonight. I'll report back as soon as I have some results.

What I can say for sure, it fits so much better into the focuser tube, without any play or tilt. I always had issues with the MPCC not fitting correctly or tilting.

I'll be interested to hear how you get on with this and how it compares to the Baader MPCC ! 👍

My first ever attempt at the Milky Way using the star adventurer mini, just a bit of a test. 2 images blended, one for the sky (using SAM) and one for the foreground (with SAM turned off).

Canon 5d Mk4 & Samyang 24mm F1.4

80 secs, ISO800, F2

It's a bit messy with some quick processing and light pollution but it has potential. 

5 minutes ago, AndyThilo said:

Is the box metal or plastic? Looks better made than the Gerd one

Hard to tell what it is tbh ! It's maybe a sort of fibre board, almost wood like, nicely made tho, feels like a quality item.

3 hours ago, Erling G-P said:

One question regarding dimming the Lacerta:

Does this require something extra besides the panel ?

Recently got a Lacerta panel, with one selling point being that it was dimmable.  It says 'dimmable' on the panel, but for the life of me I can't see any way of regulating it - there's no buttons or anything on the panel box, and I can find nothing on the supplied power cable with cigar plug connector either.

Here's some pics of mine, it came with a little dimmer dial.

19 hours ago, AndyThilo said:

Hi

How are you getting on with the Lacerta panel? I have a Gert 160mm for my ES102 and it works great, but now I need a new one for my Edge HD 8" and the Gerd one is expensive. The Lacerta is much cheaper and they have a dimmer (needed for my 294MC Pro). 

Cheers

Andy

The Lacerta panel is great and the dimmer works well. Really impressed with the build quality too, it's quite solid with no flaky wiring.

Here's an alternative.

http://www.astronomiser.co.uk/

I have used cheap astrophotography and astronomiser in the past, both were good.

I went from crop sensor to full frame in order to reduce noise at higher ISO's in my MW shots.

I used to use the same samyang (rokinon) 14mm lens with my 7d but anything above 1600 ISO gets noisy, I got a 6D and can shoot happily to 5000 ISO, which gets you a lot more detail too. Now have a 5D mk4 and again high ISO performance is way better than my 7D mk2 crop sensor.

If full frame isn’t an option then you could try stacking images, I’ve done this with landscape MW photos before and it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rydg7JGTAbw&t=308s

Not done any darks with mine yet but I was going to put the camera in the fridge to do them. I figured it's very dark in there when the door is shut (reducing risk of any light leakage) and it's cool too.

On 20/04/2020 at 08:00, Stu said:

I had a somewhat lively debate on FB about these. I’m told they will be in low enough orbits that they will only be visible a couple of hours after sunset and before dawn. We shall see, I suspect they will still be quite distracting.

I caught them during in my lockdown garden timelapse the other night. Did only see them towards the end as it was getting light but could that have been because they happened to be there at that particular time an not there for the rest of the time, or are they whizzing by constantly ?

21 hours ago, johninderby said:

One thing I find really usefull in managing cables is a roll of velcro cable tie instead of pre-made cable ties. You can make up any length of tie needed.👍🏻

Looks useful ! I'm going to try this, thanks.

On 16/04/2020 at 18:53, TareqPhoto said:

It will be for DSO imaging and sometimes the moon.

I'll be very interested to hear how you get on with this. I was considering purchasing this for DSO imaging, but have been put off by worrying about maintaining critical collimation, especially as I would be moving the telescope back indoors after every session (no obs).

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p5881_TS-Optics-6--f-4-UNC-Newtonian-Telescope---Carbon-Tube---made-in-Germany.html

20 hours ago, CaptainShiznit said:

Just as a side note, did you find a dew shield to fit the 130 PDS? I was after something to reduce internal reflections from a street light without flocking and asked FLO about the Astrozap ones who replied that none were suitable.

I've used a flocked camping mat for a couple of years, recently ordered one of these tho. I have agreed a delay in dispatch until things start returning to normal with the virus stuff. It doesn’t get properly dark here in the summer months anyway so I am in no big rush to get it.  

https://www.astromaniaoptics.com/astromania-flexible-dew-shield-for-telescope-front-outer-diameter-from-148-167mm-diameter-keep-dew-away-and-gives-you-clear-observing-for-entire-night-p0211.html

My 600D wouldn't do APT live view with "face detection" mode enabled. Maybe check this setting and disable ?

48 minutes ago, TomColes said:

Hello all and thankyou for allowing me to join

my main reason for joining it’s to improve my Astro photography with the help of all the kind people on here.

i am in need of a little help I am trying to take some deep space photos

I have a star adventure pro a Nikon d7500 and various lenses. 
 

i have been able to get lovely pin sharp photos of the stars using my Nikon 55-300.  Set at ISO 100  f.       And a 2min exposure. However this is not producing the deep space photos I am searching for.

i have tried my 150-600 tamron lens for deep space but I keep getting a very strange star trail when doing this and therefore writing the images off as useless. 

setting used fully zoomed in. ISO 100 f.     And even at 30sec it’s still doing it.

i have triple checked the polar alignment and the balance of the camera and counter weight. All good.

i was photographing the pin wheel galaxy (or trying too)

my question is what am I doing wrong? What settings are others using?

i found it very difficult to locate the pinwheel galaxy. Is the an easier to locate galaxy that you would suggest ( an easy to find / beginners galaxy )that I can get everything sailed in on and finally start taking some decent images.

i intended to take multiple shots then stack them however at the moment with what’s happening that will be a waste of time.

Welcome to SGL !

So..... Maybe the 600mm is a bit too heavy for that mount ? A longer focal length will magnify any little errors too.

For DSO's I normally use fairly high ISO and stack to reduce noise, 100 ISO is very low to pick up detail of faint objects even with 2 min exposures.  For example when I use my 6D with a lens at f4 I use ISO 1600 for 2 minute exposures. When I used to use a DSLR with my F5 telescope I used ISO between 800-1600 for 10 minute exposures of galaxies.

What f. do you use ? Of course wide open lets in the most light but I usually stop down one or two stops to increase star sharpness with most of my lenses.

For framing I use maximum ISO and short exposures (maybe 10-20 secs) to get stuff where I want it before running the actual images.

On 01/04/2020 at 22:55, Anthony1979 said:

Rother valley optics for my scopes and bits and MPB for my cameras

+1 for Rother Valley Optics, used them a lot and find them very good. Also FLO and TS Optics are very good too.

On 08/04/2020 at 16:49, stash_old said:

You need to get ASPS to download the correct index's as per you FOV (or largest FOV used for more than one camera) - downloading all is time consuming and will slow Platesolving if all index's are used.

Do it via "Indexes" menu - this screen should appear 🙂

 

Thanks. I tried this using the index wizard thing but kept getting that warning. Uninstalled and reinstalled, same problem, just locks up and won't let me do anything at all. Did this a few times with no success.

Strangely, when I logged out off the PC and then logged back in with a different user account it all ran OK ? I have two accounts on the PC so I am just using the second one now instead, I installed the indexes no probs and it seems to work OK so far. I wonder why it works fine for one user but not the other ?

56 minutes ago, bottletopburly said:

Have you downloaded the indexes needed for your setup ,

It won't let me ?

Just to clarify, I've downloaded ASPS only. I've opened it and gone to the index wizard thingy to try and get the correct indexes but it just keeps giving me that error message and won't calculate the FOV when I enter focal length/pixel info etc.

Should I have downloaded something else (perhaps full indexes ?) alongside the ASPS download to make it work ?

Thanks

Hi

Can anyone help please. I've loaded PS2 no probs but I am having problems with ASPS. I have downloaded it OK but when I open it to set it up I get error messages about database files. Any ideas where I am going wrong ?

Thanks

Hi All

I'm trying to download ASPS to use with APT. I'm a bit stuck and keep getting this unable to open database error. All I've managed to do so far is to download ASPS and open it, then I get this error message. If I try to the index installation wizard it won't work even tho I've entered all of the correct info regarding my camera and focal length.

Can someone please tell me where I am going wrong.

Thanks

On 02/04/2020 at 16:41, mAnKiNd said:

For anyone interested in fixing their star shapes (subject is Vega) from this to this:

I designed a 3D print on tinkercad (.sti file attached)Skywatcher 130PDS Newtonian Primary Mirror Aperture Mask.stl, found a local 3D print shop to make it for me and applied to the mirror clips as such:

 

Looks great. I'd like to do this but I know nothing about 3D printing. If I just give that file to someone who has a 3D printer can they produce it for me and will it be scaled correctly ?

Thanks

4 hours ago, woodblock said:

I've now got EQMOD working with Carte du Ciel and APT and I'm wondering why it took me so long to get it to work. It's just great, easy.  I am so glad to get rid of the handset on my HEQ5. The developers have done a fantastic job.

 

Agreed ! I use it with CDC and APT too, it's excellent.  👍

9 hours ago, mAnKiNd said:

Thanks for the suggestion, should work well ☺️

Is that a home made or shop bought dew shield ? Looks tidy ! I'm using a DIY flocked camping mat at the moment.

I just bought an astrozap shield for my 200 PDS, it fits well and seems solid and well made, I'd like something similar for the 130 PDS if I could find it.

4 hours ago, dyfiastro said:

I can recommend the Baader MPCC if you are looking for a replacement. I have had very little issue getting it to work with both my 130PDS and my 200p

+1....  I agree, the MPCC works well for me too. Mine needed a little bit of initial setting up (just a few test shots) to get the correct spacing but that was easy enough to do.

1 hour ago, Whistlin Bob said:

I don't think so- the effect is usually to make stars in one corner appear a bit Pac Man. That effect looks more like reflections somewhere in your image train.

For the OP- I can't comment on the STs as I don't have one, but the 130pds is wonderful providing you get a CC (the Skywatcher one has been good for me and f4.5 is good to image at) and don't mind a bit of DIY on the drawtube for the issue described above. With those 2 issues fixed it's a giant killer of a scope.

Yeah I had some minor 'pacman' stars before I cut down the focuser tube.